News

Henry K. Lee, San Francisco Chronicle, November 8, 2011A former Oakland police officer must pay $40,000 out of his own pocket to two men who were illegally strip-searched in public and have already been awarded at least $100,000 apiece in damages. Spencer Troy Lucas and Kirby Bradshaw had their pants pulled down on a busy West Oakland street in 2005 by police after then-Officer Ingo Mayer stopped them for no lawful reason, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel wrote in an August ruling after a bench trial. In the ruling, the judge ordered the city to pay $105,000 in compensatory damages to Lucas and $100,000 to Bradshaw. On Friday, the judge ordered Mayer to pay $25,000 to Lucas and $15,000 to Bradshaw. "She thought it was important to send a message to penalize this officer for his flagrant violation of constitutional rights," the men's attorney, Michael Haddad, said Monday. Mayer retired on disability as a result of the trial, the judge said.